by Greg Keyes
that Anakin had heard twice; once when she was under the heaviest influence
of her Yuuzhan Vong conditioning; once in a vision he'd had of her as a dark
Jedi, her face mutilated by the scars and tattoos of a Yuuzhan Vong
warmaster.
"No," Anakin said. "Let them go."
His generosity didn't stop the Peace Brigaders from taking a parting
shot as they ducked around the corner.
"Jedi brats!" one of the men shouted. "Your days are numbered!"
When he was sure they weren't just hiding around the corner, waiting
for his guard to drop, Anakin turned to survey the damage.
The Peace Brigader had stopped moving. Kelbis Nu was still
alive-barely. His glassy eyes were looking beyond Anakin, but he reached up
a hand.
"Ya . . . ," he said weakly.
"Tahiri, use your wrist comm. Try to find the local emergency channel."
He took Nu's hand and pulsed strength from the Force into him. "Hold on for
me," he said. "Help will be here soon."
"Ya-ya-ya . . . ," the Rodian gasped.
"Don't try to talk," Anakin told him. "Waste of strength."
Suddenly Kelbis Nu went still, his trembling ceased, and for the first
time he seemed to actually see Anakin.
"Yag'Dhul' he whispered, and behind that whisper was a stormwind of
danger.
That was all. The Jedi's life left him with his last breath.
Tahiri was shouting at someone over her wrist comm.
"Never mind, Tahiri," Anakin said. "He's gone." Tears started in his
eyes, but he battled them down.
"He can't be," Tahiri said. "I was going to save him."
"I'm sorry," Anakin said. "We got here too late."
Tahiri's shoulders began to twitch, and she made a sound like hiccuping
as she fought to control her tears. Anakin watched her, wishing he could
help, that he could make the grief go away, but there was nothing he could
do. People died. You got used to it.
It still hurt.
"He said something at the end," Anakin told her, hoping to distract
her.
"What?"
"The name of a planet, Yag'Dhul. It's not far from here, right where
the Corellian Trade Spine and the Rimma Trade Route meet. And I felt. . .
danger. Like he was trying to tell me something bad is happening there." He
glanced down at the bodies. "C'mon. We'd better go."
"We have to do something," Tahiri said. "We can't just let those guys
get away with it."
"We can't hunt them," Anakin said.
"Why not?"
"Because we're Jedi, not assassins."
"We could at least tell security or whoever enforces the law around
here."
"We're supposed to be here anonymously, remember? If we draw attention
to ourselves, we endanger the mission."
"Some mission. Getting supplies. This is more important. Anyway, we've
already drawn attention to ourselves." She nodded at the crowd of vagrants
drifting toward them, the curiosity of two dead bodies overcoming their fear
of two live Jedi.
And as if to highlight her point, a trio of groundcars arrived at the
end of the alley and disgorged armed, uniformed people.
"I guess we'll be talking to security after all." Anakin clipped his
lightsaber to his belt and held up his hands to show they were empty.
The officers approached warily, led by a lanky, craggy-faced man with
the fading remnants of a black eye. He looked down at the two bodies and
back up at them. Then his eyes focused on their lightsabers-Tahiri still had
hers in her hand.
He raised his gun. "Place your weapons on the ground," he said.
"We didn't do this," Tahiri exploded. "We were trying to help."
"Put it down, now, girlie."
"Girlie?"
"Do as he says, Tahiri," Anakin said, carefully detaching his weapon
and placing it near his feet.
"Why?"
"Do it."
"It's good advice, kid," the officer said.
Radiating anger, Tahiri placed her lightsaber on the duracrete.
"Good. As officers of the judicials, it is now my duty to inform you
that we are detaining you for questioning and possible prosecution."
"What? You're arresting us?" Tahiri said.
"Until we sort this out, yes."
"Ask the crowd. They saw what happened."
"We will; don't worry. There will be a thorough investigation. Make
this easy on yourselves."
But words are only the shadows of thoughts, and behind the officer's
words, Anakin felt something that suggested that this was going to be
anything but easy.
THIRTEEN
By the time Jaina reached the vicinity of the Sernpidal system, her
X-wing felt like a suit of clothes she'd been wearing for way too long.
In fact, her clothes felt that way, too, but more so.
Jedi meditation techniques and isometrics made the long hyperspace
jumps bearable, but nothing could hide the fact that there was no room on an
X-wing for a shower. Or ' room to stand up, to walk, to run.
That's not likely going to happen anytime soon, she chided herself. So
concentrate!
She was near her goal now. Somewhere down there-or so the tracer told
her-was Kyp Durron. Or his X-wing, at
least,
Or merely the tracer beacon, if Kyp was more clever than Uncle Luke
imagined. Jaina started sweeping with long-range sensors.
Kyp wasn't at Sernpidal anymore, but a system several very strange
jumps away. The star at the bottom of the gravity pit was old, a white dwarf
that at this distance was barely brighter than its much more distant, hotter
cousins. It was wreathed with a lazy torus of nebulas ejected when the star
collapsed into its present pale form. Jaina had appeared in the inner fringe
of the gas cloud.
She punched up the stellar survey and found a brief entry more than two
hundred years old. The star had a number but not a name. Six planets. The
nearest to the sun was a lifeless rock; the next three were sheathed in
frozen carbon dioxide and water ice. On the outer planets, the ice got more
exotic: methane, ammonia, chlorine in various com-
pounds. The largest planet, a gas giant, had picked up its own nebula
from the outbound gases expelled from the parent star.
No known intelligent life in the system, no known life at all. No
resources that couldn't be found more easily elsewhere, and no reason to
come back.
But Kyp Durron had come here.
She followed the beacon in, dropping from above the plane of the
elliptic. It took her to the fourth planet, a rock half the size of
Coruscant that made Hoth seem like a hothouse. She tried not to fidget.
She hadn't expected to come in unnoticed, and she didn't. As she was
making orbit a pair of X-wings rose up to meet her. One had the beacon in
it.
A few moments later, she answered what turned out to be Kyp's hail.
"Amazing," he said. "Simply amazing. Jaina Solo, you continue to find
ways to surprise me."
"Hello, Kyp."
"I'd ask you what could have possibly brought you to this place, but I
almost don't want to know. If the Force guided you, it's almost too
frightening."
>
"How so?"
"Because I was just about to come looking for you and Rogue Squadron,"
Kyp answered, sounding sardonic.
"Really."
"Yep. I've found something, Jaina-something I can't handle with my
Dozen. Something that could strike a death blow to the New Republic if we
don't deal with it now, while we can."
"What are you talking about?" Jaina asked.
"I'd rather tell you in person. Follow me in-we don't have much down
there, but it's better than the cockpit of an X-wing."
Kyp and his followers had melted tunnels and caves
through the water ice and sealed it, then sifted an oxygen-nitrogen mix
from higher up, where the planet's atmosphere had condensed when its primary
went cold.
"We keep it right at freezing in here," Kyp explained, "so our humble
home doesn't melt." He handed her a parka. "You'll want that."
"To tell you the truth," Jaina said, "the cold feels good. Almost as
good as it feels to stand up." Her legs were having a little trouble finding
their stride in the lower gravity.
"Well, like I said, it's not much, but we like it," Kyp said.
"Kyp, what are you doing all the way out here? This whole sector must
be crawling with Yuuzhan Vong."
"Oh, they aren't far, though you'd be surprised by their numbers, I
think-but they aren't here. No worlds to colonize, no slaves to be had, no
machines to be destroyed."
"Except you, your people, and your ships."
"Good point. But there are a lot of these played-out star systems near
the Rim. This one isn't even particularly rich in ore because the star died
with a whimper-no supernova to spew heavy metals all over the place. I don't
see them looking here when all of their efforts are focused on the Core,"
"You think they'll push toward the Core?"
Kyp rolled his eyes. "You're smarter than that, Jaina. The Yuuzhan Vong
are taking a breath, that's all, hoping their collaborators will do some of
the work for them. But they're building up everywhere. And what I've found
out here-"
"Yes, you mentioned that."
"First things first, Jaina. Do you mind telling my why you're here?
And, in all seriousness, give me a little hint as to how?"
"Master Skywalker sent me to talk to you."
"Really? He has something new to say?"
"He and Mara fled Coruscant after Borsk Fey'lya ordered their arrest."
Kyp blinked, and his brow creased.
"Come in here and sit down," he said. He ushered her into what was
obviously his war room-a portable sensor sweep, a tactical display, and star
charts were its furnish-
ings. He pulled up a collapsible chair for Jaina and one for himself.
"That was uncommonly stupid," he murmured. "Even for Fey'lya. Do you
think our chief of state is working with the Peace Brigade?"
"Master Skywalker doesn't think so. Neither do I."
"Huh," Kyp said dubiously. "So what is Master Sky-walker doing now?"
"Aunt Mara's pregnant, you know. It's not long before her time comes.
Uncle Luke's hiding out with Booster Terrik. He intends to find a planet to
build a Jedi base on."
Kyp's eyes narrowed. "A base for what?"
"To operate from. A place where endangered Jedi can go, a place for
them to strike from."
"Jaina," Kyp said, "choose your words carefully. What do you mean by
'strike'? Don't put words in the Master's mouth just because you think I
want to hear them."
Jaina looked down at the floor. "No," she said, "he's still not
advocating what you're doing. He's trying to build a network to pass people
and information in and out of Yuuzhan Vong space. A system of places like
this, and ships-"
"But no direct action. No bringing the fight home to the Yuuzhan Vong."
"Not exactly-not the way you mean. But, Kyp, he is doing something, and
he needs your help."
Kyp shook his head. "I think he sent you out here to find out what I'm
doing."
"Partly. But he also sent me to bring you back into the fold."
Kyp rubbed his jaw thoughtfully for a moment. "I don't object to what
Master Skywalker is doing. I have my bolt-holes and contacts, but they're
limited, scattered, one day at a time. I don't have the resources or the
leisure to build and maintain a stable network. If Luke does, that's great.
I wish he would take a more active hand, but this is more than I was
starting to think he would do. He's right; I can be of help to him, in
certain sectors. And I'll do it-I'll meet with him. But Jaina, I need
something from you in return." He
frowned. "Though this arrest business changes things." He mulled that
over a bit and shrugged. "I'll lay it out for you anyway. I'm not on good
terms with any of the military leaders. I need someone who is. Is that still
you?"
Jaina thought back to her last encounter with Rogue Squadron. And Wedge
Antilles, so far as she knew, was still on the side of the Jedi.
"They might listen to me," she allowed.
"Or your mother."
"What do you need, Kyp?" Jaina asked wearily.
He looked at her as if for the first time. "It can wait a few hours,"
he said. "Why don't you get cleaned up? We sank an old cargo tank to use as
a warm room. There's a hot tub of water calling your name."
"That sounds really, really good," Jaina said. "That's not a
proposition I'm prepared to refuse, anyway."
The rogue Jedi's eyes twinkled mischievously. "When you're done, we'll
discuss what other propositions you might find interesting."
That did something tickly to Jaina's stomach. She tried to ignore it.
Clean and in a change of clothes, Jaina spent half an hour limbering
up, enjoying the luxury of motion. Then she rejoined Kyp in the tactical
room. A few more of his Dozen-plus however many now-were in evidence. They
nodded at her when she entered.
"That better?" Kyp asked.
"A lot better," Jaina told him. "Solar diameters better. Parsecs
better. So. What's up?"
"I like that," Kyp said. "You get to the point." He gestured for her to
take a seat.
"Like I said earlier," he began, as she settled into the reinforced
flimsiplast chair, "we've been mostly taking things day by day. Harassing
Yuuzhan Vong convoys, providing aid to resistance movements, keeping our
receivers tuned. The problem was, nothing we could ever do was enough. We
were no more than ore mites, irritating the Vong. The other thing I realized
was how little we really know about
them. How many are there? Where do they come from? Are they still
coming? So a few months ago I decided to spend some time on an extended
recon. We began at the Rim, where they first entered, then visited Belkadan
and Helska. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't as hard as I expected, either. I
found a few answers. I found a lot more questions. But Sernpidal-Gavin
Darklighter took Rogue Squadron to Sernpidal. After."
Jaina stiffened.
"Right," Kyp said. "You were with him, weren't you? What you saw was
confidential, not something for crazy Kyp Durron to know. But when people
see strange things, J
aina, they talk." He leaned forward on his elbows.
"I've been known to accuse the New Republic and the Jedi of being slow to
act, of having their priorities confused. Sometimes I've been right; maybe
other times I've misstated the case. This time..."
He tapped on a holo display, and the Sernpidal system appeared. An
adjustment, and a small section of it came into tight focus-a crescent of
debris.
"The remains of Sernpidal."
Jaina suddenly felt her throat closing and tears welling behind her
eyes. She'd thought she had a handle on this, on Chewbacca's death, but
seeing the wreck of an entire planet, knowing somewhere in that jumble of
rocks were the molecules that had once knit together into a person who had
lived and loved, had held her when she was young-it stung. In some ways,
Chewie had been a bigger part of her life than her own mother.
Kyp felt her grief and gave her the space of a few moments to adjust.
Then he pointed to the holo.
"They did it to make ships," he said softly. "They grow the ships as
they grow all of their tools. They feed the young ones on broken planets."
He looked significantly at Jaina. "You knew this, right?"
She nodded.
"Right. Coralskippers, bigger ships, all of the things we've seen
already. But then there's this."
He magnified yet again.
As they looked at the image, Kyp continued. "Gavin
Darklighter saw the Yuuzhan Vong growing a ship the size of the Death
Star. Why didn't anyone think that was a serious thing?"
The . . . thing . . . portrayed in the holograph was clearly a Yuuzhan
Vong ship. It had the same organic look to it, and in color and alternating
textures rough and smooth was much like the larger ships Jaina had already
seen. But in form it was quite different.
It spidered across the sky, a huge, multilegged monster with each
leg-or arm, or whatever-curving in the same direction, so the whole thing
looked like a mad sculptor's attempt to portray a galaxy. It was beautiful
and terrible, and it made her mouth dry to look at it.
"It didn't look like that before," Jaina said. "It was just
an ovoid."
"What you and Gavin saw was hardly more than a seed," Kyp said. "That
thing could swallow Death Stars for lunch. And no one has done anything."
"We've had our hands sort of full," she replied, aware that her voice
was hushed. "How did you get this? Surely after Rogue Squadron's recon, the
